The Northwest Technate – 1946

OK-SAFE, Inc. – One can sometimes find interesting things at estate sales. One such find was the recent discovery of a slim magazine entitled The Northwest Technocrat, NO. 119, Vol. X, which originally sold for 15 cents.

Here was history. This was actual evidence of the Technocracy movement that swept across the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century, before mysteriously dying off in the late 1940’s or so. (Maybe it just went into the universities, to percolate there, instead.)

Published in 1946 by Technocracy Inc., and showing an address of 9108 Woodward Ave., Detroit 2, MICH., the cover of this edition features a black and white photo of a fire truck – apparently evidence of the advancements in the design of fire truck technology.

Featuring such articles as Why Not Eat Cake?, Here’s to Health!, Fire!,Science for Sale, and Developing Trends, the magazine included a A Letter to Manchester Boddy.

This short letter-to-the-editor piece questioned why articles about Technocracy had ceased to appear in Boddy’s Los Angeles paper, The Daily News, after that paper had been such a strong advocate earlier?

Excerpt from a Letter to Manchester Boddy (p. 21):

“Now, Mr. Boddy, since you once publicly proclaimed that Technocracy has the answers and that it was ‘little less than treason’ for the ‘men on the inside’ to withhold information on Technocracy, and since you, yourself, for several months used material on Technocracy as front page stuff, why then is Technocracy no longer mentioned in your paper? Can you tell me why a scientific balance between production and distribution, as long proposed by Technocracy Inc., is any less correct and necessary today than you openly admitted it was in 1932 and 1933?

In view of the fact that your paper claims to be the outstanding liberal newspaper in Los Angeles, I expect your prompt reply, editorially and otherwise.

Page 23 featured the graphic “Schematic Administration Chart of the American Technate”, the chart detailing the structure for the Administrative control over the “functional sequences” associated with with all the physical equipment of the Continent, (industrial production, consumption and distribution) and the service functions (public health, education and recreation). This administrative structure was to be overseen by a Continental Control, who reported to a Continental Director.

Schematic Administration Chart of the America Technate

This chart defines the structure for a proposed “new social organization for North America.” Most people would clearly see this as a set up for tyranny, but not the Technocrats.

These rational “science-based” technocrats believed that if experts – i.e. non-political experts such as themselves – oversaw all the functions of production and distribution, if they managed to efficiently regulate and control energy usage across the entire North American Continent, if they oversaw the entire social order, matching worker to task and providing the basic necessities of life (and threw in some recreation and entertainment) – there would balance in the world and everyone would be happy, satisfied and content.

Technocrats believed that these rational “science-based” experts would not abuse their authority or tyrannize the people.

In the real world this is referred to as “fantasy.”

Reading any of the material put forth by Technocracy Inc. one senses foreshawdowing of that political agenda known as sustainable development, aka Agenda 21.

See our prior post entitledWhat is Technocracy?and click on the Technocracy Study Course text to see evidence of this idea.

It is entirely possible that the social organization as envisioned by these early technocrats laid the groundwork for future sustainable development policies.

At the very least, technocratic ideas helped pave the way for an agenda based on ‘scarcity’, an agenda that is orchestrating a systematic reduction in standards of living here and elsewhere. Technocracy Inc. made it clear that as the advancements in technology occurred, and the means of production became more streamlined, fewer and fewer people would be needed to do the work. (People being replaced by machines or by computers). This means an increase in unemployment virtually everywhere.

A reduced need for workers translates into an overall reduction in the need for people in general.

So how to deal with the excess population? How about promoting the idea that the world is over-populated, and that man has caused global warming? Eliminate God and God’s plan for people from public discussion, and develop schemes and policies that favor single lifestyles, childless marriage and smaller families. Make abortion legal and readily available. Plan densely packed communities, and squeeze people into smaller and smaller dwellings, making it harder for them to have a family. Make it more difficult and expensive to own property or have a car. Promote a culture of death by creating a health care system that can unplug the elderly or infirm because they are no longer productive, cost too much or are using too many resources, etc.

Spreading the Technocratic idea – Units and Members

If the papers had quit publishing information about Technocracy, how were the ideas and concepts of Technocracy being spread around the country? Apparently by means of magazines such as The Northwest Technocrat and the establishment of chartered Sections of “units and members” all across the country.

This is reminiscent of how so many Rotary Clubs, America Legions and Masonic Lodges were established in small towns across the U.S. in the early 20th century.

Page 21, (22 of the pdf) reads in part, “The basic unit of Technocracy is the chartered Section consisting of a minimum of 25 members and running up to several hundred….There are units and members of Technocracy in almost every state in the U.S. and in all provinces in Canada, and in addition there are members in Alaska, Hawaii, Panama, Puerto Rico and in numerous other places with the Armed Forces. Members of Technocracy are glad to travel many miles to discuss Technocracy’s Program with any interested people and Continental Headquarters will be please to inform anyone of the location of the nearest Technocracy unit.”

Membership was open to almost anyone in North America – except “Aliens, Asiatics and politicians are not eligible.” Oh, those rascally politicians.

There is evidence to suggest that there is a rising technocracy of sorts, here in the U.S. and elsewhere.

If so, this means the end of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, meaning property; the end of country, home and hearth. A Technate recognizes no borders or boundaries, and seeks to have global control of all the earth’s natural resources and people. It aims to dictate how we people live and where, and how many of us there should be; a technate does not acknowledge God’s plans for His people.

*ENDNOTE: Most of the articles featured in The Northwest Technocrat were signed by individuals, who followed their names with a six-digit number (five number, hyphen, single number).

In the Technocracy Study course, the Continent was to broken up into Regional Divisions, determined not by country or state boundaries, but by latitude and longitude. An individual’s Regional Division number was determined by adding up the bisecting points of the southeast corner – i.e. 11833-2. Think of it as early GEO tagging.

Excerpt from the Technocracy Study Course, (p. 245 of the pdf)

“It is the latter system of subdividing the Continent on the basis of latitude and longitude that we shall adopt. By this system we shall define a Regional Division to be a quadrangle bounded by two successive degrees of longitude and two successive degrees of latitude. The number assigned to each Regional Division will be that of the combined longitude and latitude of the point at the southeast corner of the quadrangle. Thus the Regional Division in which New York City is located is 7340; Cleveland, 8141; St. Louis, 9038; Chicago, 8741; Los Angeles, 11834; Mexico City, 9919; Edmonton, 11353, etc. In this manner all the present political boundaries are dispensedwith. The whole area is blocked off into a completely rational and simple system of Regional Divisions the number for each of which not only designates it but also locates it. It is these Regional Divisions that form the connecting link between the present provisional organization of Technocracy and the proposed operating one depicted in the foregoing chart. In the process of starting an organization the membership of a particular unit is much more likely to be united by geographic proximity than as members of any particular functional sequence.”